AMD Fusion Z-series promises ultimate HD tablets

AMD plans to expand its Fusion family with a new series of APUs designed specifically for the rapidly growing tablet market.

Codenamed Desna, the new APUs will be part of AMD’s Fusion Z-series, but at this point technical details are rather sketchy. AMD touts the new series as capable of “powering the ultimate HD tablet” and offering “true APU technology,” which is about as vague as it gets.

However, it is clear that we are looking at proper Fusion parts tweaked for tablets. Bear in mind that AMD’s C-50 APU has already found its way into Acer’s Iconia W500 tablet and it is safe to assume that new Z-series parts will offer slightly superior power efficiency than current C-series APUs. The C-50 variant used in the Iconia reportedly consumes up to 5 watts. However, Z-series specs remains unclear at this point, although it seems likely these APUs will be based on the same Bobcat core as Ontario and Zacate chips.

Of course, Z-series APUs will offer full DirectX 11 compatibility and AMD doesn’t fail to mention that they will be more than capable of smoothly streaming full HD video. In addition, AMD promises acceleration in IE9, HTML5, MS Office 10 and Adobe Flash 10.2. External monitors will also be supported and AMD notes that the Z-series should allow “immersive gaming.”

This promises to be a rather eventful summer for AMD and we will try to find out more about the Z-series over the coming days, so stay tuned.